What’s RescueTime?

RescueTime is a time management &amp; Productivity software firm founded in 2008. The RescueTime app runs in the background of your devices monitoring, measuring and categorizing your activity.

RescueTime is a free app with a premium upgrade That enables features and more specific reporting like time input. It delivers a reporting dash with your data chopped, diced and sorted into graphs that are useful to help you manage your time.

The app is based on Peter Drucker’s (the famous Management advisor ) maxim that”what gets measured, gets managed.”

RescueTime requires the manual monitoring of time And makes it automatic and painless you truly track your time so that .

Nevertheless, there are dozens and dozens of Productivity &amp; time management programs online. What are the real pros &amp; cons of RescueTime? Here is what I’ve noticed over the years.

Disclosure — I get referral fees Mentioned on this website. Any data and/or remarks are based on my experience as adviser to a paying client or a customer. Timing Vs Rescue Time

Rescuing Your Time

RescumeTime is a productivity tool in the to reiterate Sense that it helps your time-management abilities enhance. It collects data about the apps and sites you use, then generates reports based on that information.

You set up a and create an account to get started Desktop program on your personal computer (s) and optionally a cell program on Android devices. There’s no iOS program because the operating system prevents RescueTime from collecting the information it needs to perform its function. Those apps quietly and invisibly track which programs you use and which sites you visit, as well as the quantity of time you spend on these.

The tough nut to crack is the Way to make sense of all that information. To get the best results, you must customize your accounts from the RescueTime website and tell the app more about what you consider productive versus unproductive action. The more you fine-tune it to your specific circumstances, the better your results. As an example, somebody who operates in the finances industry might classify reading financial news on sites such as MarketWatch and FT.com as a productivity task, whereas for me, that’s an unproductive use of time.

You can categorize website and each app on a 5-point Scale of very productive, effective, impartial, unproductive, and incredibly unproductive. You can even categorize activity into work categorizes. By way of instance, I record Google Docs as quite productive, and I categorized it as Writing, and it will be a subcategory of Design and Composition. Looking at Redfin.com is very distracting when I’m trying to function, and I have categorized it as such.

In the desktop program, there is an easy set of controls That lets you pause RescueTime for 15 minutes, one hour, or till tomorrow, providing you easy access to switching the program off for breaks or days once you wrap up early.

Privacy

When faced with RescueTime’s proposition–We will monitor All you do and give you insights about your customs! –some people might, justifiably, be worried about their privacy and the safety of information on their own hardware. If you use sensitive info online or keep sensitive information on your computers and mobile devices, you’ll want to browse RescueTime’s privacy and safety statements carefully.

For everyone RescueTime’s privacy policy Includes a summary on very top, only a few condensed lines that are worth studying.

If your worries are more relaxed and you simply don’t Want RescueTime tracking you on the weekend, so you’ve got control over the days and times the app monitors your behaviour. You can easily set it to just watch your activity from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, or whatever schedule suits you.

Reports

I have used RescueTime for decades, and that I don’t check my Productivity reports daily. I love to let the service run in the background so that when I do want to get a better image of how I’ve been spending my time, a fantastic amount of information is waiting for me.

When I do go through the reports, however, they’re Magnificent. I really like the variety, providing you get multiple methods of knowing your productivity and customs, from bar graphs and pie graphs that reveal lump amounts of action, to line things of software you used.

One simple but powerful piece of advice RescueTime Provides is an investigation of when during the day you tend to be the most productive. I was not surprised to observe that my brain peaks in the morning and slacks off after 2:00 p.m., as that matches fairly well with what I know about my customs. If you’ve never studied your productivity, nevertheless, that may be a beneficial revelation for you, one that may help you schedule your days more productively.

The more time you use RescueTime Premium, the more useful the Data becomes, because you can view your data by day, week, month, or year. And as you might expect, you can toggle that times and days RescueTime records your action so it turns off automatically on weekends, for instance. Timing Vs Rescue Time

Additional Features

Much of the value you get from RescueTime comes in what You make of this data and the way you use that data to influence your behavior. Changing behavior is tough, but getting rich insights does not have to be.

One of the manners RescueTime makes it Simple to understand how To interpret all the information it collects is with a Productivity Pulse score. This daily score, shown as a percent, comes in calculating the percentage of time spent very productive, productive, impartial, unproductive, and very wasteful jobs. To be clear, nobody is advocating you aim for a 100 percent Productivity Pulse score.

A RescueTime blog article explaining the productivity Score notes that the score is 67 percent, and the average is 79 percent. The majority of people want to do some job that is not considered”very productive” during their day. The whole purpose of using RescueTime is to help you figure out how to concentrate on productive and incredibly productive tasks if you will need to and perhaps save productive activities for times as soon as your ability to concentrate was waning anyway.

Tasks are not the same thing as distractions. RescueTime has a straightforward and smart attribute for controlling behavior that is unwanted, like getting sucked into websites , too. A feature named FocusTime, when empowered, blocks your ability to access. It takes a little setup and personalization, but after it is ready to deploy, it is quite effective. As an example, let us say you wish to finish a report, and to make progress on it, you need to concentrate hardcore for the next 30 minutes. Switch on FocusTime, and it can prevent you from looking at email, posting on Twitter, checking sports scores, or whatever other websites and activities you deem distracting.

The RescueTime mobile program has a setting that will Automatically silence your phone when you enable FocusTime. Likewise, you can set up other automation with the support of third party services IFTTTFree in iTunes Store and Zapier to obstruct or silence other distractions. For instance, you may create a rule using IFTTT (it stands for”if this, then that”) that says,”When I empower FocusTime, then automatically set my Slack standing to active.”

RescueTime also Provides you the option to log time computer Idle moment. Whenever RescueTime notices the computer has been idle for many minutes in a row, so it pops up a dialogue asking if you’re in a meeting, on the phone, taking rest, and so on, and permits you to classify the idle time accordingly.

Pros of RescueTime

Here is a Number of the advantages of using RescueTime Over other solutions. Timing Vs Rescue Time

Feature Set

At its heart, RescueTime does something — monitor time. If you look at it like this, it’s not super unique. Technically, you could do this using a spreadsheet or some of those dozens of programs that are free on the internet.

However, RescueTime’s attribute set is special because of How it tracks time and exactly what it does with all the data (aka, you you’ll really use).

RescueTime watches which windows currently have Activity, looks at the window name, and instances the action in that window. It’s constantly running in the background watching.

Unobtrustive makes RescueTime rewarding. There is no friction or barrier to tracking time.

Since RescueTime’s monitoring feature simplifies that Problem, you’ll have data that is complete, correct & useful.

RescueTime’s other attributes focus on producing their Core attribute better. Like time-tracking &amp; charging for 15, they don’t attempt to add on features that are complementary. They do not try to enter any side businesses.

They do have Feature in an interesting manner. For example, the Get Focused! When selected from running feature blocks distracting sites and/or programs.

They have aims and alarms that allow you to decide What when X happens, you want to happen — and RescueTime will do that based on what it’s monitoring.

I also love how RescueTime does Offline Time Tracking. Rather than having to search and add it 100% manually, then you pick a time period that is unlogged and fill in the blank.

You can even customize the buttons to make logging Offline time quick and simple.

It’s a minimalist feature but that’s precisely Making it great. It is straightforward, easy and well-done.

Pricing and Strategies

RescueTime provides two tiers of service: Lite (free) and Premium ($9 per month or $72 annually ). Businesses or organizations that want to utilize RescueTime across a bunch of people pay the exact same rate as Premium subscribers.

RescueTime Lite offers plenty for Somebody Who Has never Monitored her or his time. The app monitors which websites and applications you use, and also how long you spend in or on each of these. You may categorize each program and website you use on a Productive/Unproductive scale, also RescueTime creates a few primary reports showing the best way to spend your own time. Lite members can set weekly objectives, such as”spend hours each week on productive jobs and fewer than Y minutes on unproductive items.” It’s possible to get a report email for you. For reports, you’re confined to a three-month history.

Subscribers get everything in the Lite plan that is free, Plus extra features and reports, including an unlimited history. Premium also comes with alerts you can enable for when you reach daily goals. You can more accurately log time spent away from the computer, noting if you’re in a meeting, on a phone call, or just out to dinner. There is a Get Focused alternative, which permits you to block deflecting websites for a period of time you place. Timing Vs Rescue Time

Comparing RescueTime’s cost to that of other apps Requires an open mind as few apps do precisely what RescueTime does. Qbserve is one and it costs a level fee of $40.

We can look at more traditional time-tracking Apps for freelancers that typically include tools for creating bills. HarvestFree in Harvest is an adequate example. At $12 per person a month for Premium, it costs more than RescueTime, but it has a very clear return on investment since it helps ensure more accurate billing. How you will translate RescueTime’s reports and make better use of your time as a result is much less clear.

Toggl Popular among freelancers, costs $9 per month, and it gives you tools for tracking time spent on projects with billing clients’ typical end goal. It has integration options for connecting with invoicing services, although toggl does not include its own invoicing tools.

A Couple of apps are closer to RescueTime in what they have to Offer, such as Slife, although they tend to have fewer features even if they are free (and Slife is).

Either way — RescueTime is a no-brainer pricing-wise. It’s free to use.

And when you are saved by the attributes only One hour each month it’s paid for itself even if you are earning US minimum wage.

RescueTime is.

App Quality

A problem with tracking programs of all kinds is That they constantly must be on. The”always on” feature can cause performance problems on laptops &amp; desktop computers. It can cause battery issues .

But in my experience, RescueTime induces neither. It’s running on my Windows PC my Macbook Pro, along with also my Nexus 5x phone from startup. I’ve never monitored any battery or performance problems.

It’s lightweight and well-built.

I enjoy the fact that the app doesn’t demand Dozens of permissions that are absurd. It demands access to usage data, but doesn’t attempt to monitor location, contacts, emails, or some of the privacy that is typical violating other apps that are permissions request.

It is quick to install and syncs using an online dashboard. It crunches the information if you’re on the Premium program or from next day to the plan that is free, and pulls in the period.

Reporting

What’s the purpose of information if it can’t be interpreted by you ? Timing Vs Rescue Time

RescueTime’s reports solves that issue — and in Ways is the entire purpose of working with the app over a spreadsheet.

RescueTime’s Dashboard uses bar and Pie charts to show just what you are (and are not) doing.

You can Choose to receive reports Daily, Week or even month.

And best of all, you can dig deep to the Reporting with various filters and overlays to find out your habits.

It to determine that the actual amount of Time that each task happens.

When I trying to find a marketing agency in Atlanta — The time tracked to Instant Messages and Gchats was astounding. It changed my project managers personally, but also processes not only for me.

Now that I’m on my own I will see the time I devote to tasks that matter. I can build my day around those.

And just to reiterate Built-in into the software. The Dashboard is on my default — as well as advanced reports are pre-built.

It’s all quick, seamless and powerful so that you While analyzing your time are currently wasting time.

Integrations

Among the selling points of RescueTime is their characteristic set minimalism. They do one thing and they do it well.

That said people using their merchandise Have software needs that are time-based. When it’s charging project management, staff time monitoring or something your own time demands do not stop with measuring, monitoring and categorization.

To solve that Issue, RescueTime’s software Integrates with a huge range of other applications. They have integrations and an API with shared applications.

Whether you are a freelancer attempting to integrate Time tracking into invoicing applications like FreshBooks or even a job manager that must collate staff member’s time, RescueTime will probably integrate with this.

Disadvantages of RescueTime

Like any applications RescueTime is Perfect nor can it be the best fit for everyone. Here’s some pitfalls that I’ve noticed through the years. Timing Vs Rescue Time

Default Get Focused! Categories

In general, RescueTime’s categories are fairly good. Websites like Reddit, Facebook and Twitter are”Very Distracting”…for many people. And for tracking, RescueTime’s categories are quick &amp; easy to repair.

However, RescueTime’s categories can be away with general News, research websites and distracting sites’ subdomains.

I can’t use the Get Focused! Functionality for almost any Task which needs research (aka visiting a bunch of different sites ).

The time I need smart obstructing Performance is when I’m doing research for a post

There’s a fine line between which really is productive and When I am researching this is distracting. It’d be good to use RescueTime, but the categories are not true enough for this to operate.

The root problem is that the Block Sites work Is not available in reverse (ie, add certain sites to block). I can add websites to unblock.

And if I am visiting dozen blocked websites — Manually adding them becomes the time wasting.

If You’re Looking for an program that will block just Specific deflecting sites — RescueTime is not it.

Effectiveness vs. Efficiency

RescueTime (or some time management software) Heightens the prejudice towards efficiency over effectiveness.

If you do the wrong thing for 18 hours per day, Every day with focus that is perfect — you are doing the thing that is wrong.

The most important Element in time management is to Work on the right things .

And that. RescueTime Can not fix that issue.

Actually, in certain ways, RescueTime can hurt your By pushing you towards improved efficient doing over research strategy and planning Attempts.

If effectiveness is your core issue RescueTime isn’t for you. It’ll only make things worse.

Rather, I’d recommend reading a few of them books.

Summary

RescueTime has been an invaluable tool for me personally. It’s not for everyone and has pitfalls and some feature quirks.

Nevertheless, the thing it’s provided is perspective. It’s easy to believe you”work a ton” or are”not hooked on your telephone” or”spend so much time composing” or are”barely ever on Facebook.”

However, the information does not lie. And utilizing RescueTime to Get accurate time data onto your digital time can help your time is literally rescued by you and place your life in perspective. Timing Vs Rescue Time